


La'ahlam

by imogenbynight



Series: Coda Fic [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Castiel's mission in Syria, Coda, Episode: s13e16 Scoobynatural, Fanfiction Gap Fic, M/M, Mangosteens are the most ridiculous fruit, Mary Winchester - mentioned - Freeform, Sam Winchester - mentioned - Freeform, The Tree Of Life, Unrealistically Large Bathtub, djinn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 07:14:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14159565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imogenbynight/pseuds/imogenbynight
Summary: When he finally finds the Tree of Life, it’s standing among the crumbled remnants of a long-abandoned town, and it’s ruined. Burned. Dead.





	La'ahlam

**Author's Note:**

> la'ahlam | لأحلم | to dream
> 
> Thanks to Nat & Maria, whose encouragement over the past few days has somehow dragged me out of a year-long writing slump, and to @casitstoobig on twitter, whose [tweet](https://twitter.com/casitstoobig/status/979529467747098624) inspired this whole thing.

It takes a full week for Castiel to reach Syria.

With the airport in Damascus indefinitely closed, he arrives via boat from Cyprus, standing uncomfortably beside the captain as they approach the shore by cover of night. He swims the last mile alongside a handful of rebels, and helps them remain unseen as they scurry onto land. As difficult as his own journey is going to be, he knows that theirs will likely be worse.

As he watches them clamber over the rocky earth and into the shadows beyond the waterline, he imbues them with what little grace he can spare, hoping it gives them the edge they need to survive.

Once they’re out of sight, he opens his senses to the ether, and feels Tree of Life almost immediately.

Its energy signature sings in holy space, thrumming against his grace in a way that makes him feel as though he’s stuck his head under the lip of a church bell at midnight. It’s almost unbearable, the vibrations making his skull feel too tight, but he ignores it as best he can even as he follows the energy back to its source.

The closer he gets, the _more_ it gets—louder, deeper, more resonant—but with something unmistakably wrong underneath it. A bitterness sinks into his teeth and sets him on edge in a way that isn’t helped by the constant current of fear and anger and helplessness that presses in on him from all sides in this place.

When he finally finds the Tree of Life, it’s standing among the crumbled remnants of a long-abandoned town, and it’s ruined. Burned. Dead.

The blackened branches cast the faintest of shadows on the dusty ground, and the sight is enough to make him curse his father, turning his furious eyes to the sky for lack of a better option.

Nothing is ever easy. Nothing is ever alright. Even here, in the middle of a war-torn country, surrounded by constant suffering for years on end, it seems that there’s always room for God to have let them down in one more way.

Chuck may have tried to convince them all that he was doing the best he could, that he just wanted them to try, to strive for their own happiness, to make it on their own, but—

 _Damn you,_ Castiel thinks, and hates that it sounds so weak. That there’s little he can do but project loathing in Chuck’s general direction. He sighs. It won’t help to dwell.

Though he knows it may be fruitless—in every sense of the word—he moves closer, clambering over rubble and rock, just in case there’s something more to be found. The energy is still there, after all. It called to him. Still calls.

It can’t be _wholly_ dead, so there’s still a chance that it can be healed.

Resting his hand on the tree’s gnarled trunk, he closes his eyes and pushes his grace below the surface. It weaves through the porous bark, down through the charred surface and into the fibers of the wood, slipping down between the grains before it bounces back to him, setting off something like a static shock under his skin, tainted with something blue and sharp, metallic and cool, like cloud and stone entwined.

“Djinn,” he says to himself, and turns in place to inspect the ruins around him, searching for any sign of movement among the slabs of broken sandstone and cement. They’re here, he realizes. They’ve been here for a long time. The undercurrent of the energy he tracked here suddenly makes sense. That strange bitterness that he could not place was their power, woven into the tree and the rubble that surrounds it.

Slowly, they emerge from their hiding places, surrounding him in a loose circle, and Castiel counts them swiftly. Thirteen djinn. The blade concealed in his sleeve presses reassuringly cool against his forearm, but he does not unsheath it.

 _Don’t get yourself killed_ , Dean had told him before he left, and Castiel, still mildly irritated over the Donatello argument, had sarcastically thanked him for the exemplary advice. He dearly hopes that “I’ll take that under advisement” won’t prove to be the last thing he ever says aloud to him.

His best chance at success, he knows, is de-escalation. Even if it weren’t, he’d still rather not fight them. Not here. Not when there’s already so much violence soaked into the earth of this place.

“I don’t wish you any harm,” he says, the Arabic words feeling as unpracticed to him now as English was for his first few days on Earth.

The djinn glance at one another. Something silent passes between them, and they move, descending on him from every direction.

The first to reach him is dead before her long-nailed fingers can fully grip his arm, eyes flaring blue as Castiel’s blade slides fluidly between her ribs.

The next has a weapon of his own—a short, curved blade—and it nicks the skin of Castiel’s neck, drawing blood but not grace. Castiel rewards him for his effort with a well-place strike through the throat, and pushes the djinn free of the blade with a grunt.

The third snatches the scimitar dropped by the second. A fourth and fifth swipe at his legs, trying to knock him down as a sixth grabs for his blade.

Castiel dispatches them all with relative ease. He lays his hand on the forehead of the eighth as he sinks his blade into the gut of the ninth. His hands feel slick with blood. He hates it. Hates that it always comes to this, to _death_ , no matter what he does, no matter how he tries to do things differently.

“Please,” he says as the tenth body falls at his feet, raising his hands with his red palms facing outward. “I don’t want to fight.”

“Stop.”

The voice comes from behind a broken wall, and the three djinn look toward it, though the djinn who spoke has remained hidden from view. Castiel does not trust the reprieve. Not yet.

The voice comes again, curling around the corner.

“Why are you here?”

Slowly, Castiel lowers his hands.

“I came for fruit from the Tree of Life,” he says, loud enough that she will hear him.

“Many have come before. Why should you be granted the gift of eternal life when they have not?”

“Eternal life is not my goal,” he says, and finally, she slips out into the open.

The three djinn move to flank her. She’s beautiful, Castiel thinks, in the manner of a sharpened blade. She glints with power, rippling dangerous and cold as she studies him more closely.

“No,” she says after a moment. “You have no need for it, do you?”

The ink-dark lines on her skin shift, coiling around her fingers and wrists and disappearing under the long sleeves of her robe. Her eyes are shrewd. Calculating.

“You’re a long way from home.”

“Around six and a half thousand miles,” he agrees immediately, and she frowns at him before briefly glancing over at one of the others.

“Somewhere in the United States,” he says. She lifts her brow and returns her gaze to Castiel.

“I suppose Heaven isn’t all it used to be.”

Castiel feels a strange sensation in his gut at the realization that he hadn’t even considered that she’d meant Heaven. It hasn’t been home for some time.

“So if not for immortality…”

“It’s an incredibly long and complicated story, but the archangel Michael is intent on bringing an apocalyptic war to this world. The ritual I intend to carry out will give me and my friends the means to stop him, and we need fruit from the tree of life to complete it.” He glances back at the charred tree, empty of leaves or fruit. “But it seems that we’ll need to find a new way. What happened?”

Her lips quirk at the edge, though there’s little humor in her voice when she speaks.

“Your brother is not the only power-hungry creature willing to destroy something simply so that no-one else can have it.”

As she approaches him, his grip on his blade instinctively tightens, and the other djinn subtly shift, their bodies tense and defensive. Castiel forces his hand to relax, painfully aware of her tracking the miniscule movement.

“What is your name?” she asks.

“Castiel.”

She nods, looking down at the bodies of the slain djinn, before raising her eyes to him again.

“I am Ruqayya. These were my children.”

“I didn’t want—”

“I know. They only sought to protect the tree. I regret that I was not here to reach an understanding earlier.”

Closer, he can see lines around her eyes. Fine wisps of silvery hair emerge from beneath her hijab. She’s ancient, he realizes. An alpha. A queen.

“I had been under the impression that the tree was guarded by an angel,” he tells her.

Ruqayya smiles, and it’s genuine this time, though her eyes grow sad.

“Ophaniel was here for a very long time. I couldn’t bear the thought of allowing all his years of guardianship go to waste just because he was pulled away on a suicide mission by your God.”

Castiel’s brows lift in surprise.

“Ophaniel was your—”

“I shared many years with him here,” Ruqayya says. “And now that he’s gone, I will continue to guard this tree in his honor, as will my children.”

“I fought alongside him,” Castiel tells her. “He would be grateful.”

He does not mention that he saw him die. That he was dragged back down into Hell by the demons that had chased after Castiel as he’d carried Dean up through the ice-cold smoke that surrounded the fifth circle.

Ruqayya only nods.

“Do you know what this tree provides?” she asks, and he inclines his head.

“Life,” Castiel says simply, knowing there must be more to it, but unsure where to begin.

She hums in agreement.

“The roots extend down into the earth, but they do not draw up water. Power coils down, down, down through the rock and dust, and when the roots end the power continues. Spreads out and out forever. This tree brings life to every living plant, every living tree on Earth.”

Reaching out, she touches the tree, and lines of power flow between her fingertips and the bark. It shimmers all over when she moves her hand away.

“It also carries the essence of my kind throughout the world. It’s truly symbiotic. We nurture the tree, and protect it as best we can, and the tree imbues the world’s produce with our energy.”

“So after eating fruit from any tree—” Castiel begins, a wrinkle forming in his brow as he makes the connection, and she nods.

“Their dreams that night feed us. It has been many years since I or any of my children here with the tree have had the need to hunt for our food. But we have been weakened as the tree has been weakened. We cannot help it in this state, and it cannot help us.”

“It’s still alive, though,” Castiel says.

“Yes.”

“So it’s not beyond help.” He looks at her; takes in the sagacious glint in her eyes. “But you already know that.”

“I do.”

“What do you need me to do?”

As the three djinn move around them, solemnly carrying their fallen siblings away to be prepared for burial, Ruqayya explains how they might restore the tree. Her explanation is long-winded, but when she finally gets down to it, Castiel is relieved by the relative simplicity of what is required.

Sitting on a broken pillar, he looks at Ruqayya and considers what she’s told him.

“One night,” he confirms.

“Yes.”

“And this union will ensure that no harm will be—”

“If it will help you,” Ruqayya cuts in, “I consent to you looking into my thoughts.”

She closes her eyes, waiting, and Castiel reaches out. Inside, the djinn’s mind is a swirl of chaotic blue. He chases every strand, every word, every story, searching each truth for the hint of a lie. There is none.

The energy Ruqayya pulls from him will give her the strength to restore the tree to its former glory, and she will allow him to take as much fruit as he needs with no conditions. The union, he sees, is necessary. Without it, they would both be at a disadvantage. The djinn could drain Castiel completely as he slept, defenseless; Castiel’s grace could burn through Ruqayya’s very being without his even trying.

He also sees that in the eyes of the djinn, by entering this union, he will replace Ophaniel as her consort—it seems that the union is more like a marriage than anything else—but though Ruqayya did not mention this fact to him, he suspects that this omission has more to do with her own lingering grief over the loss than anything nefarious.

He shifts back fully into himself, and Ruqayya’s eyes open. They’re bright and hopeful.

Castiel folds his hands on his lap and regards her openly.

“Shall we begin?”

***

The bunker door is unlocked when he arrives, and Castiel slips inside to find Jack reclining on one of the leather chairs overlooking the map room. He’s reading, but it isn’t research—it’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

He’s completely absorbed in it, quickly flipping pages at a rate that suggests he’s taking advantage of his angelic side in order to read faster, but as soon as he notices Castiel watching him it gets tossed to the side, forgotten.

“You’re back!”

Castiel’s heart swells at the knowledge that his absence has been noticed, even as a little voice in the back of his mind whispers— _this isn’t real. I’m not here._

When Jack comes in for a tight hug, Castiel puts down his heavy duffel bag to return it.

“Hello, Jack,” he says.

_This isn’t real. He’s still trapped. Jack is still—_

“Did you know that Harry Potter is set in the early nineties?”

“I did not know that,” Castiel tells him, even though he did. He still recalls every detail of every book that Metatron stuffed into his head, but he also knows that Jack loves to share facts as he learns them, and he’d rather let him think that he’s taught Castiel something new than to see the disappointed expression he gets when someone just tells him, _“I know.”_

“Dean says that means that all the Muggles should be listening to Nirvana and doing jazz aerobics.”

“I didn’t know that, either,” Castiel tells him with a laugh.

Somewhere, further down in the bunker, he knows that Dean will be waiting for him. He wonders if he’ll be able to stay with Jack for the whole time that Ruqayya needs him to remain asleep. If somehow, the passage of time will shift in a way that allows him to escape the most potentially damaging aspect of this fantasy.

“Mary said she’d remind Sam to buy me the next book on the way home from New Jersey,” Jack goes on, oblivious to Castiel’s distraction. “They’re coming back tonight.”

“That’s good. When I spoke with Sam last, he wasn’t sure how much longer the hunt was going to take.”

He’s not certain how he knew to say so, but when he tries to remember the conversation he’s just referenced, it’s all there, as sharp and clear as any other memory he could try to pull forth. He remembers Sam calling him as he’d sat behind the wheel of his truck, waiting for the driver ahead of him to place their order at a drive-through burger joint on the other side of Rock Springs, Wyoming. He remembers Sam’s voice, how irritated he’d been as he’d told him, _“There’s nothing left to salt and burn. I’m just hoping we’re not gonna find out this guy donated a kidney to some local like the last time this happened.”_ He remembers switching his phone to speaker mode and tossing it onto the passenger seat as the cars crept forward.

When he tries to remember why he’s actually here, it’s harder. Despite his effort to recall details about the djinn, the desert, his slow trek to Syria, he finds himself struggling to dredge up much more than the vague shape of each memory.

“Mary said she kicked the ghost’s butt,” Jack tells him, proudly.

“That does sound like Mary,” he agrees. Jack grins again before his eyes dart back toward the book he’d been reading. “What part are you up to?”

“Lupin just taught Harry how to cast a Patronus,” Jack says.

Castiel widens his eyes.

“That’s a very good part,” he tells him, and glances downstairs to see Dean walking into the map room. He looks up at Castiel and Jack with a soft smile that has Castiel’s knees feeling a bit weak. So much for avoiding him. “I’ll let you get back to it.”

Jack sinks back into his chair and resumes reading, and Castiel watches him for a moment before he steels himself and heads downstairs. Dean is waiting for him by the map table. He looks comfortable with his socked feet peeking out from under his loose jeans, and he pulls Castiel into a hug as soon as they’re on the same level.

His arms are warm.

 _Not real, not real, not real_ , Castiel repeats to himself, even as he sinks into the feeling. It would be so easy to let himself have this. It’s no wonder the djinn have such longevity.

“Hey,” Dean says. His voice reverberates against Castiel’s chest, and Castiel feels himself slipping, all that resolve he had to keep himself separate from the dream just falling away. Because nothing has ever felt as good as this. Nothing has ever felt as safe. “How was the hunt?”

“Tiring,” Castiel tells him, thinking of his long drive, of talking to Sam, of the djinn--no, there was no djinn--just a chupacabra that he’d tracked down in the middle of Nevada, far too far north for anyone else to have realized what they were dealing with. _Not real,_ he thinks, and frowns at the bizarre thought as he pulls back to look Dean in the eye. “How have things been here?”

“Lonely,” Dean sighs dramatically, though there’s amusement in his tone.

“Jack has been here the whole time,” he points out.

“Mm, but you weren’t.”

 _I’m not here now,_ he thinks, and blinks. _This isn’t real. Don’t forget. Don’t forget. Jack isn’t here, either. He’s trapped. Still trapped. Don’t forget._

Despite everything, he hears himself saying, “I’ll make it up to you,” and Dean’s eyes brighten. Castiel feels a heady rush at the sight, but it gutters out within seconds as Dean leans close to press an easy kiss to the edge of Castiel’s mouth.

Castiel’s entire body seizes up, muscles taut as he tries and fails to remain calm.

_This is wrong. This isn’t Dean. This isn’t real. I can’t, we can’t--_

“Maybe later,” Dean says, and brushes his knuckles over Castiel’s cheek. _This is okay_ , Castiel thinks. _He’s touched me like this before. This is allowed. Just don’t let it go any further, don’t let him_ \-- “You stink like you’ve been on the road for a week.”

Castiel rolls his eyes, his memories flicking seamlessly back to the hunt in Nevada, all thought of the djinn in Syria, of the mission to find the fruit, of the unreality of this entire situation--gone. He pushes lightly at Dean’s chest.

“I _have_ been on the road for a week,” he says.

“So I’ll bet you’ll appreciate the bath that’s waiting for you. Go relax, okay? I’ll bring you some coffee.”

He pinches Castiel’s thigh before he walks away, and Castiel aches to his core as he watches him go. Right before he disappears around the corner, Castiel calls out to him.

“Dean?”

“Yeah, Cas?”

“I missed you, too.”

Dean winks at him.

“Prove it,” he says.

Castiel laughs, shaking his head, and heads toward the bathroom. It’s humid when he steps inside, and his blue bathrobe is hanging from the hook by the mirror. The wide bathtub—used for storage by the Men of Letters, and untouched by any of them as far as he can remember—is filled almost to the top with steaming, peppermint-scented water. He stares at the tub for a long moment, trying to recall when it was restored to its true purpose.

 _This isn’t real_ , he thinks suddenly, but the thought cuts off almost as abruptly as it came, and when he kneels beside the tub to test the temperature of the water, he feels the uneven tile digging into his knees, and it feels about as real as anything else he’s ever felt.

 _This isn’t real_ , he thinks as he pushes back to his feet and begins to unbutton his shirt, but as far as he can tell, there’s nothing beside the strange thought that seems out of the ordinary.

He breathes in the steam as he undresses, and feels the aches of his long drive being soothed a little more with each passing second. _This isn’t real,_ he thinks, again and again, but the thought is getting dimmer. Quieter. Less plausible.

Leaving his clothes in a rumpled pile on the floor, he sinks into the warm water. His muscles grow lax almost immediately, loosening in the lazy heat, and the thoughts stop altogether. He’s dozing when the bathroom door creaks open, and he blinks groggily as Dean walks in and sits carefully on the edge of the tub, setting a cup of coffee down by the soap dish.

“Thank you,” Castiel says.

“Don’t thank me. This is all completely self-serving—I just wanted to check you out.”

Dean dips his hand into the water, swirling it around and skimming over Castiel’s submerged forearm with his fingertips. “Water’s not too hot?” he asks.

“It’s perfect.”

“Good.”

“Mm.” Castiel shifts, his knees emerging from the water like two tan islands as he leans his head against the tiled wall and studies Dean. There’s something he’s missing. Something that needs to know. Something that he needs to remember. “Will you tell me something?”

“Anything. Unless it’s embarrassing, and then you’ll have to buy me a drink first.”

“Were you really lonely while I was gone?”

Dean chews on his lip, glancing away.

“I was just yanking your chain, Cas.”

“I know,” Castiel says, but he catches Dean’s hand where it’s still dipping into the water and slots their fingers together. “But were you?”

Dean doesn’t answer for a moment. As Castiel watches him, he looks down at their joined hands and runs his thumb over Castiel’s knuckles. Castiel barely suppresses a pleased shiver at the sensation.

“It’s just better when you’re here,” Dean says eventually.

“You could’ve come on the hunt,” Castiel tells him, though he doesn’t want to say it. He secretly prefers it when Dean elects to stay home, because that way he knows that he’s out of harm’s way.

Dean shrugs.

“Seems, uh… I dunno. Counterproductive. I just need to get used to not being attached to anyone’s hip.”

As much as he wishes it wasn’t true, Castiel knows it is. And he’s proud of Dean for acknowledging it. For keeping himself from transferring his codependent tendencies from one person to another. The brothers are more solid than they’ve ever been, now that their relationship isn’t the fraught, tense, all-or-nothing disaster that it’s been since they were children, and Castiel is more thankful for it than he can express. He knows Mary feels the same.

He tugs gently on Dean’s hand and smiles.

“I’m happy as long as you’re happy,” he says.

“I am,” Dean says, and smiles back. “But I think we’ve both had enough alone time for now.”

Castiel couldn’t agree more, and as Dean undresses he repositions himself, shifting to make room in the water. He moves fluidly, and Castiel watches him with a full heart and a sense of unwavering certainty that he’s precisely where he should be. They both are.

With his chest pressed to Dean’s back, he wraps his arms around his waist and holds on tightly. Pressed close like this, skin to skin, he can feel Dean’s pulse echoing in his own ribcage, each beat bringing them closer together. Smiling to himself, he presses his lips to the back of Dean’s neck.

“I never thought we’d get here,” he breathes.

“I did,” Dean tells him.

“Mm?”

“I knew you’d never be able to resist me.”

Castiel squeezes him again, and Dean laughs, his bare stomach jumping under Castiel’s hands.

“Well, I’m glad I couldn’t,” he says, and this time Dean doesn’t make a joke. Instead, he takes one of Castiel’s hands in his own and lifts it to kiss the palm.

“Me too, sweetheart.”

The coffee goes cold long before the water does.

***

When Castiel wakes in the arid heat, his head is in Ruqayya’s lap, and she strokes his hair gently, like a mother with a frightened child. It takes a moment for reality to come back to him. When it does, his eyes begin to water.

Ruqayya looks down at him with genuine pity.

“Are you alright?” she asks.

Swallowing, he nods, pushing himself up and away, pressing his eyes shut to block out reality for just a moment, just to hold on to the dream for a little while longer. It was imperfect, but _oh_ , it was close. He’d had everything.

He’d been okay. He’d been content.

Now, he has this. Thousands of miles between himself and his home, his family, the people he loves. The man he loves.

“I’m fine,” he lies. The sense of loss he feels at the knowledge that it was nothing but fantasy is greater than he could have prepared for. Ruqayya rubs her palm over his back, comforting, and he wonders how he ever thought she was cold. “Did it work?”

“Take a look,” she says.

He does.

Above him, the tree’s trunk is still blackened with soot, but new growth has burst forth at an alarming rate. It’s covered in glossy green leaves, and there isn’t a single branch without a round, purple fruit weighing it down toward the Earth.

“It’s a mangosteen,” he says, and Ruqayya hums.

“Sometimes. It has grown a great many things over the years. Pomegranates and limes. Apples. Lychee. It grows whatever is needed.” She smiles at him. “Even before the fire, it hasn’t looked so healthy since Ophaniel left.”

“I’m glad I could help.”

Standing, she gestures to one of the djinn, and he comes closer, carrying an empty bag. He holds it out for Castiel.

“Take as many as you’d like,” Ruqayya says.

He fills the bag until it’s almost overflowing, letting out a startled noise when another fruit rapidly springs into existence inches from his hand.

“How long will this ritual take?” Ruqayya asks him.

“My friends are gathering the rest of the items we need,” he explains, rearranging the bag so that the fruit does not fall out, “but it should only be a few weeks until we can set it in motion.”

“Then I wish you luck.”

She touches his cheek with her palm, and he smiles, grateful, before turning to leave. He’s a dozen feet away when she calls out.

“And Castiel?”

“Yes?”

“I waited six centuries to tell Ophaniel the truth, and I’ve regretted all that wasted time since the day he left. It’s far better to know. Don’t be as foolish as I was.”

**Author's Note:**

> You might have noticed that it's been a long time since I posted anything here. There's a good reason for that: I lost my mojo. 
> 
> Over the past year (with the exception of [Withering](http://www.withering-the-comic.tumblr.com), purely because it comes with constant feedback from my co-creator which I evidently needed to get through this nightmare of a creative slump) I've been utterly incapable of writing anything that I was proud enough of to share. Every word has been like pulling teeth, and more often than not, I've hated every one that's ended up on the page.
> 
> It's been almost a year since I've even been able to bring myself to show a draft to a friend for feedback. So. Here we are. I cannot believe that my first piece of published fic after such a long hiatus is technically a Scoobynatural coda fic, but hey. I'm not gonna look a gift Great Dane in the mouth.
> 
> All this has been to say--I'm so sorry for my extended absence. I've missed interacting with people here, and sharing stories with you all. I'm sorry for the WIP fics that I have yet to finish posting, and for the fics I owe to a few people in particular. The fics I owe people (and believe me, owing them whilst growing more and more convinced that I had lost all ability to write has not been a picnic) are finally approaching a state that I consider fit for public consumption, so it shouldn't be long before they're up here.
> 
> Here's hoping that this has been a turning point in my long and agonizing drought of words, and I hope you all enjoyed it <3


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